Leave no Footprints

[Danny Gober]

There is an old mill pond half a mile from my house. I've always wanted to fish it. Finally got up the courage to ask permission. I got lucky and got permission from three landowners. The last making it clear that if I left so much as a cigarette butt. I told her I didn't smoke and that broke the ice. She's sick of clearing thrash from the overflow. The point is I'm going to carry a trash bag with me, I'll pick up after myself and whatever thrash I find. It's a terrific stream with bass, gills and brook trout further upstream. Just a little effort on my part should keep the landowners happy. Hopefully They'll let me keep on fishing all year. Dan

[SilverMallard]

A great man taught me this habit when I was a boy. And I have been refused trespass ONCE in my entire life to hunt or fish private property. That was because of a feud between the guy I was hunting with and the farmer, and I was completely unaware of the problem until that day. This guy told me he leased the land for hunting. The farmer threw us off and made it very clear that my new duck hunting buddy was a liar and a trespasser. I actually became friends with this farmer later and was granted permission to hunt his farms and some of his neighbors' farms...to GUIDE on them. So long as I didn't hunt or work with that guy anymore.

Moral: attitude and a little effort is EVERYTHING. If folks think you respect them and are considerate, they will ALMOST always let you fish their property. And they will usually even let you hunt. But if they think you are a "typical" hunter or fisherman, they will almost always deny you permission.

That trash bag you carry is an excellent metaphor for the whole phenomenon. The guy who will take the time and make the tiny effort to pick up OTHER PEOPLE'S trash will always be welcome. I even pick up other people's trash on public water/land whenever I can. If you only pick up that one can, bottle, or cup on your way to the car...and you do that every time you see one on the way out...you are making an improvement. If we can set an example and convince a bunch of others to do the same, there won't be any trash laying around in short order. On several occassions, I have been seen doing this by others who came over and joined me with their kids. It has to start somewhere.

[fcch]

And with more and more folks respecting people's property, ... such as Danny does, ... Hopefully, ... Ya'll will be seeing more of these: